Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
RFC 1812 - 7.3.2.1 Introduction

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### 7.3.2.1 Introduction

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP-4) is an inter-AS routing protocol that exchanges network reachability information with other BGP speakers. The information for a network includes the complete list of ASs that traffic must transit to reach that network. This information can then be used to insure loop-free paths. This information is sufficient to construct a graph of AS connectivity from which routing loops may be pruned and some policy decisions at the AS level may be enforced.

BGP is defined by [ROUTE:4]. [ROUTE:5] specifies the proper usage of BGP in the Internet, and provides some useful implementation hints and guidelines. [ROUTE:12] and [ROUTE:13] provide additional useful information.

To comply with Section [8.3] of this memo, a router that implements BGP is required to implement the BGP MIB [MGT:15].

To characterize the set of policy decisions that can be enforced using BGP, one must focus on the rule that an AS advertises to its neighbor ASs only those routes that it itself uses. This rule reflects the hop-by-hop routing paradigm generally used throughout the current Internet. Note that some policies cannot be supported by the hop-by-hop routing paradigm and thus require techniques such as source routing to enforce. For example, BGP does not enable one AS to send traffic to a neighbor AS intending that traffic take a different route from that taken by traffic originating in the neighbor AS. On the other hand, BGP can support any policy conforming to the hop-by-hop routing paradigm.

Implementors of BGP are strongly encouraged to follow the recommendations outlined in Section 6 of [ROUTE:5].

Next: 7.3.2.2 Protocol Walk-through

Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
RFC 1812 - 7.3.2.1 Introduction